The Bakersfield Californian

GOP won’t remove ballot boxes

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SACRAMENTO — With more than 1.5 million votes already cast in California, state Republican Party leaders on Wednesday said they will not comply with an order from the state’s chief elections official to remove unofficial ballot drop boxes from counties with competitiv­e U.S. House races.

Secretary of State Alex Padilla and Attorney General Xavier Becerra, both Democrats, say these unofficial ballot drop boxes are illegal and have ordered Republican­s to remove them by today. They worry voters will confuse these Republican boxes with the official ballot drop boxes put in place and monitored by county election officials.

Party leaders have said they put these boxes in Orange, Fresno and Los Angeles counties. Wednesday, party leaders would not say where else they have put these boxes or how many ballots they have collected from them.

But Tom Hiltachk, the party’s general counsel, said these boxes comply with California’s “ballot harvesting” law, which lets people collect ballots from voters and return them to county election offices to be counted.

“The fact that it is a box does not make it illegal,” Hiltachk said. “If we have to use a bag, then we’ll use a bag.”

Once a voter fills out a ballot, anyone can return it. Political parties will collect ballots from supporters and return them to county election offices, a practice known as “ballot harvesting.” Some states have banned this practice, but it’s legal in California.

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